Ok, so for some reason never really explained, Hondo (Jackson) is putting together a SWAT team. He recruits misfits like Jim Street (Farrell), who was thrown out of SWAT once before; Sanchez (Rodriguez) who's female; and Deke (LL Cool J), a street cop - mostly to piss off his boss, it seems. Then a charismatic Evil Guy (Olivier Martinez) offers people a lot of money to bust him out of jail. Someone does, someone who knows all of SWAT's methods and tactics. Can our wisecracking heroes save the day? There's no real link to the 70s TV show, apart from that melody. That doesn't matter any more than the threadbare plot - like a carnival magician, the movie hustles things along so you don't stop to think. The real triumph here is the casting; we've all seen team movies before, and all the one-liners, explosions and fancy hand signals only work if you enjoy watching the stars work their magic. And somehow, you do.

It's only late in the film when it occurs to you that, despite the noise and violence, there's been hardly any blood on-screen, and very little profanity. I mention this because it lost me a bet: not once does Samuel Jackson say "motherf***er".